Postcard
from Naples 10 - The macchietta. This postcard is a copy
of one of a series published by Bideri in 1900. The
originals are in the Lucchesi Palli section of the
National Library in Naples. They all deal with the
personality types called macchietta, associated
with ironic songs and texts of the kind that cropped up in
Italian variety shows in the 1880s. These shows were
similar to vaudeville, burlesque, music hall and other
types of musical-theatrical genres, presenting a great
variety of entertainment. One of these was the macchietta.
It was particularly strong in Naples where it became so
popular that it appeared “on the same bill” as the popular
female type, the chanteuse in the best-known
theater of its kind in Naples, the Salon Margherita, the café-chantant in the
Galleria Umberto
beginning in the early 1890s. This particular
postcard shows Nicola Maldacea, apparently the
first true macchietta and certainly
the best-known in Naples and throughout Italy.

The term, itself —macchietta—
has multiple meanings in Italian. Originally
from macchia (a stain or blotch), it
is used in painting in the sense of a "splash"
of color and even a quickly done colorful
sketch, usually a caricature. The secondary
meaning may refer to an eccentric person, as
in "What a character!", one who evokes
good-natured hilarity and amusement (but not
ridicule). From this, we have the extended
meaning, above, of the stage personality, the
macchietta comic.

This particular comic, Nicola
Maldacea, was born in Naples in 1870. He
started performing in school productions, then
in small professional and semi-pro companies
in the Neapolitan outback. He performed in
private recitals (called periodiche).
(Maybe that's not so strange. Think of hiring
a clown, singer, magician, etc. for your kid's
birthday party.) When they wanted poetry, song
or comic monologues, they could get Maldacea
and a few others like him. Their material
included dialect monologues and poetry by such
as Ferdinando Russo
and other prominent dialect writers of the
late 1800s. (Public performances of such
material was just as important as publishing
the written material in terms of maintaining
the dialect in the face of the onslaught of
standardized Italian. This was true not just
in Naples but in the many other places in
Italy with strong traditions of dialect
literature. See Dialect
literature in Neapolitan.)

Within a year Maldacea was involved with
well-known companies and in 1891 was
approached (as noted, above) by the café
chantant, the salone Margherita,
which had just opened in the new Gallery
Umberto I along the lines of similar Parisian
establishments. It was here that he created
the personality type of the macchietta
and quite literally became a nationwide
sensation. Using material written especially
for him, his trademark performance was to come
out dressed as one of a vast number of
personality types: the happy (or unhappy)
husband, the cop, the pretentious duke, the
crime boss, the intellectual, the dandy, the
priest, the lady's man, etc.etc. (Each role
was a separate macchietta.) His
material was usually targeted at a specific
person (unspecified, of course!) and most of
the fun was in trying to guess who it was.
Important, however, is the fact he was having
fun with them, not making fun of
them. It was very one-dimensional, no hidden
psychology. It was pure good-natured
caricature. The postcard (above) is entitled The
Superman. Maldacea was certainly having
fun with a known person, possibly a politician
of the day. I don't know who, but you can bet
that the audience did. Maldacea dressed,
overdressed and even cross-dressed for his
parts, using a variety of wigs, costumes,
noses and what-not. Music may have been
composed by name writers but was always
secondary, providing rhythmic, almost
"rim-shot"-like accompaniment.

For about 30 years,
between 1890 and 1920, Nicola Maldacea, was
one of the comic performers and
satirists not just in Naples but in all of
Italy. Tastes change, of course, and his
popularity waned after WWI. He went down fast
and hard. Like his father, he had blown his
money (he had made a considerable amount as a
performer) on gambling. He wound up back in
Naples playing the same small places he had
started in. By the late 1930s, they struggled
to remember him so they wrote a biography. He
played some bit parts in a few films. he died
in Rome in 1945, pretty much forgotten. Rags
to riches and back.sources:
Alifuoco, Gennaro. (1994) "La Macchietta" in Napoli in
Documenti - Archivio Napoli. Edizioni archivio.
Bibbiena, Arezzo.